A True Garden Artist Shares Her Tips

Landscape genius Nancy Goslee Power on gardens

Landscape genius Nancy Goslee Power on gardens

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Power On Gardens

Power On Gardens

As her best friend, decorator Bunny Williams, noted in the foreword to her book Power of Gardens (Stewart, Tabori & Chang), Nancy Goslee Power is the rare designer who is both "a traditionalist and a modernist." It's that hybrid sensibility—as well as her artist's eye for creating a ravishing garden—that has made the Santa Monica, California–based Power a favorite of everyone from Frank Gehry to Jennifer Jones Simon, the late Hollywood starlet who invited her to create a landscape for the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena inspired by Monet's garden at Giverny. A former interior decorator, Power found her calling after she moved from New York to Los Angeles. "I have a utopian approach to life," she says. "I want everyone to have trees."

GIVE AND TAKE

My gardens have a strong architectural underpinning, but I also try to make them feel relaxed. For instance, I'll have a clipped hedge, then let the shrub rose next to it get a little messy and spill over the more manicured section. Even if a garden is traditional, unusual plant combinations can make it feel less so. We have such odd plants out here in California—I mean that in a good way. I like to throw an agave or aloe into the mix.

The Brazilian landscape architect Roberto Burle Marx was a huge inspiration for me. He had an incredible joie de vivre. He taught me not to be afraid of color and to use masses of a single thing. Plus, he was a great plants man. His own garden is one of my favorites.

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First Growth

First Growth

I grew up on the border of Delaware and Maryland. My maternal grandmother was interested in organic gardening and was a major influence on me. My mother was a perfectionist. I'm not. One of the nice things about a garden is that it can never be perfect. It is an unruly child.

Too many gardens try to be a fashion statement. To me that's not a garden but an art piece. I like to have beautiful walls: Eat your heart out, Andy Golds worthy. I think of myself as an artist. But for me, the land always comes first.

Power On Gardens

As her best friend, decorator Bunny Williams, noted in the foreword to her book Power of Gardens (Stewart, Tabori & Chang), Nancy Goslee Power is the rare designer who is both "a traditionalist and a modernist." It's that hybrid sensibility—as well as her artist's eye for creating a ravishing garden—that has made the Santa Monica, California–based Power a favorite of everyone from Frank Gehry to Jennifer Jones Simon, the late Hollywood starlet who invited her to create a landscape for the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena inspired by Monet's garden at Giverny. A former interior decorator, Power found her calling after she moved from New York to Los Angeles. "I have a utopian approach to life," she says. "I want everyone to have trees."

GIVE AND TAKE

My gardens have a strong architectural underpinning, but I also try to make them feel relaxed. For instance, I'll have a clipped hedge, then let the shrub rose next to it get a little messy and spill over the more manicured section. Even if a garden is traditional, unusual plant combinations can make it feel less so. We have such odd plants out here in California—I mean that in a good way. I like to throw an agave or aloe into the mix.

The Brazilian landscape architect Roberto Burle Marx was a huge inspiration for me. He had an incredible joie de vivre. He taught me not to be afraid of color and to use masses of a single thing. Plus, he was a great plants man. His own garden is one of my favorites.

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First Growth

I grew up on the border of Delaware and Maryland. My maternal grandmother was interested in organic gardening and was a major influence on me. My mother was a perfectionist. I'm not. One of the nice things about a garden is that it can never be perfect. It is an unruly child.

Too many gardens try to be a fashion statement. To me that's not a garden but an art piece. I like to have beautiful walls: Eat your heart out, Andy Golds worthy. I think of myself as an artist. But for me, the land always comes first.

Power's preliminary watercolor sketch of her Santa Monica home.

NANCY GOSLEE POWER

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By Plan

Light is what makes a garden magical. If you can mitigate that with shade—whether it's a tree or a pergola—it really makes a difference.

Think about what you can see from your house. Every window should have a vista, even if it's just a wall with a piece of tile on it.

A garden should have a strong axis. In my home, you can look from the front door straight through to the back of the garden. It makes it feel three times as long as it really is. The more you define a space, the larger it becomes.

A place to eat is essential for me in the garden. I like to have people come for lunch, because it gets chilly here at night. I have a long table where I can seat 12. In the evenings, I gather with friends by the outdoor fireplace.

Pick surface materials that are harmonious with your soil. In California, I often use beautiful sandstone from Santa Barbara. For a Tudor-esque house, I'll use gray stone and gray gravels. Years ago I was working on David Easton and Jimmy Steinmeyer's house near Tuxedo, New York, and I mixed three different gravels to get the right color.

Frank Gehry's Los Angeles house and garden.

TIM STREET-PORTER

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Green Thumb

You have to constantly educate your eye with plants, like you would with art or antiques. Go to local arboretums and botanical gardens, and join every garden tour you can find. See how others use plants and get the names. I always write it down and make a sketch, and then research it later.

Look around your neighborhood to see which plants grow best and appear happiest. For Frank Gehry's garden in Los Angeles, I planted California workhorses like aloes, agaves, birds of paradise, Hollywood junipers, and jade.

Moraga Vineyards rose beds.

TIM STREET-PORTER

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California Stars

The garden at Moraga Vineyards in Bel Air is the love of my life. The late owners, Ruth and Tom Jones, hired me in 1980 to create it, which we did slowly over many years. It started out as a problem—the house should have been sited higher. I turned it into an asset by placing axial staircases through the property in order to lead the eye up the hillside toward the vineyards.

Rupert Murdoch recently bought Moraga and is planning to live there. When I met him I said, "Well, guess what—you just inherited me."